"England is said to be one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. It has lost most of its big wild animals. A thousand years ago in my village, which was quite a big place even then, s used to build their dams on my river. Perhaps a thousand years before that the villagers might have heard a wolf howl from a distant down of a rumour of bears in the forests that extended that extended for after mile. Even a hundred years ago, there would have been far more wild flowers, particularly at the edge of the cornfields, colourful blooms whose names attest to their former familiarity: , , ."